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Wild Blood for iOS is a single-player action RPG with excellent visuals and fun gameplay, letting you play as Sir Lancelot trying to save Guinevere from a magically corrupted King Arthur.

Built with the Unreal Engine, Wild Blood features stunning 3D graphics as you hack and slash your way through hordes of enemies. The story is a little far-fetched, but makes for great fun. You play as Sir Lancelot in search of Queen Guinevere, who is held captive by King Arthur and his sister, here called Morgana Le Fey. Apparently in his jealousy of his queen's romance with Lancelot, King Arthur has enlisted the help of his evil sorceress sister to open a hellgate and, with the help of demonic monsters who...well, who really cares? Though the storyline doesn't quite match up with the usual King Arthur mythology, the game has amazingly beautiful 3D graphics and realistic ambient sounds, along with frenetic -- though fairly linear -- gameplay.

As Sir Lancelot, you start out with his legendary greatsword and the control system includes a joypad for movement on the left and buttons for attack, dodge, and special abilities on the right. As you progress through the game, you'll clear out areas of baddies, smash barrels and vases for more loot (always with the smashing in RPGs!), and then complete mini quests that help you unlock the next area. You don't get much freedom at all to explore on your own, but it's hard to criticize the linear gameplay when it looks, plays, and sounds this good on your iPhone 5.

You'll also discover new weapons that you can use that will come in handy at specific points in the game. Your starting greatsword is perfect for up-close melee fighting, but you'll also get a longbow for distance attacks, and an axe for powerful spinning attacks. A button in the upper right lets you quickly switch between weapons depending on your enemy and part of the fun is using a combination of weapons to clear out an area.

What keeps the game interesting is the ability to focus your skills on specific weapons. At some point in every level, you'll find a fountain where you can save your progress, and also upgrade your weapons. Here you'll get to choose between fire, ice, and other damage bonuses, and you can buy higher tiers for each with coins collected in the game (again: smash those barrels!). You can upgrade the attributes for each of the three weapons, so there are a lot of directions you can go in each playthrough.

Wild Blood also offers local or online multiplayer through Gameloft, letting you enter 4-on-4 deathmatches and even capture-the-flag tournaments. You have options for automatic matching with Quickplay, joining a game already in progress, or creating a game of your own so your friends can join up. The multiplayer takes some practice, so expect to die a few (several) times before learning the best strategies for taking down opponents.

While Wild Blood doesn't offer a lot of exploration possibilities, the linear game style brings you through several beautifully modeled 3D environments with amazing sound design to keep you in the action. If you like mostly mindless hack-and-slash RPG games, Wild Blood is worth the money with a fun storyline, weapon upgrades, and frenetic gameplay.

Jason Parker has been at CNET for nearly 15 years. He is the senior editor in charge of iOS software and has become an expert reviewer of the software that runs on each new Apple device. He now spends most of his time covering Apple iOS releases and third-party apps.
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